The man was an intellectual giant, and not only because he scored 44/48 on the Titan Test. He will be fondly remembered.
Solomon Golomb (1932–2016)
11–20 of 34 posts
Re: Solomon Golomb (1932–2016)
#12> Berlekamp also created an algorithmic trading system that he sold to Jim Simons and that became a starting point for Renaissance Technologies, now the world’s largest hedge fund. Renaissance isn't the world's largest hedge fund.
As far as I know, they only have to disclose to the SEC how much money they have invested in equities. Since they don't publicly state total assets under management, we can't really know how much money Renaissance manages. They could have loads more than $52b invested in debt, commodities, currencies, etc.
Re: Solomon Golomb (1932–2016)
#13If, like me, you've learned to avoid everything Mr. Wolfram writes do yourself a favor and make an exception to read this one. It's great. Either he's learning from his mistakes or the meds are working.
This comment was flagged dead (maybe justifiably), but I vouched to bring it back. While it may sound like an insult, I felt the same pleasant surprise as 'tacos' while reading it. This was definitely a different voice than usual for Wolfram, and I genuinely hope it's because he's taken feedback from others on how his tone sometimes comes across.
No, I think you made the correct decision. Wolfram must finally be learning something about how to make a comfortable verbal approach.
Re: Solomon Golomb (1932–2016)
#14If, like me, you've learned to avoid everything Mr. Wolfram writes do yourself a favor and make an exception to read this one. It's great. Either he's learning from his mistakes or the meds are working.
At this point when people reflexively sh*t on Stephen Wolfram in HN threads, I reflexively assume they're just piling on, don't actually know who he is, and have never used any of his company's software (except maybe for some class in college where they struggled with it for homework in which they were required to use it).
I'm not above such things myself, sometimes I can't help myself when people are just a little too worshipful and idealizing of people like RMS or ESR. But the Wolfram comments are always so content-free that it just sounds like people having knee-jerk emotional responses to the guy based purely on other peoples' knee-jerk emotional responses.
Seriously, reflexively shitting on Stephen Wolfram in content-free HN posts is like the new "obligatory XKCD" of HN, not unlike hot grits or petrified Natalie Portman jokes got to be on Slashdot back in the day. I really don't get it.
I don't have strong feelings about the guy either way. Yes, he can come across as full of himself in a lot of his writings. But I don't ever get this visceral level of loathing from people being narcissistic, and I honestly don't know how anyone else does either. That's a reason to dislike and/or ignore someone, not a reason to reflexively post about how much you despise someone in literally EVERY SINGLE THREAD that has anything at all to do with Wolfram (the guy, the company, or its products). Seriously: I just don't get it guys, I just don't get it. AFAIK he's never hurt anyone or said anything about anyone or anything that was hateful or damaging to anything but his own image.
Re: Solomon Golomb (1932–2016)
#15> Berlekamp also created an algorithmic trading system that he sold to Jim Simons and that became a starting point for Renaissance Technologies, now the world’s largest hedge fund. Renaissance isn't the world's largest hedge fund.
As far as I know, they only have to disclose to the SEC how much money they have invested in equities. Since they don't publicly state total assets under management, we can't really know how much money Renaissance manages. They could have loads more than $52b invested in debt, commodities, currencies, etc. http://whalewisdom.com/filer/renaissance-technologies-llc
I should correct myself:
It is extremely unlikely that they are the biggest fund based on their fundraising history.
Re: Solomon Golomb (1932–2016)
#16If, like me, you've learned to avoid everything Mr. Wolfram writes do yourself a favor and make an exception to read this one. It's great. Either he's learning from his mistakes or the meds are working.
This comment was flagged dead (maybe justifiably), but I vouched to bring it back. While it may sound like an insult, I felt the same pleasant surprise as 'tacos' while reading it. This was definitely a different voice than usual for Wolfram, and I genuinely hope it's because he's taken feedback from others on how his tone sometimes comes across.
[deleted]
Re: Solomon Golomb (1932–2016)
#17If, like me, you've learned to avoid everything Mr. Wolfram writes do yourself a favor and make an exception to read this one. It's great. Either he's learning from his mistakes or the meds are working.
At this point when people reflexively sh*t on Stephen Wolfram in HN threads, I reflexively assume they're just piling on, don't actually know who he is, and have never used any of his company's software (except maybe for some class in college where they struggled with it for homework in which they were required to use it). I'm not above such things myself, sometimes I can't help myself when people are just a little t…
I've read at least three previous articles from Wolfram where someone dies and yet he makes it all about him.
I know 'dang' has come in and said "yeah yeah, he's a nut, we know... move on" on these threads before. But this article was so different -- and so interesting to boot -- that I felt the need to say something.
You cannot address Wolfram on HN without addressing the fact that people think he's a nut. I chose my words carefully. When I've moderated huge forums (gasp!) I used similar techniques to keep conversations on track. Specifically getting in early and defusing the boring, predictable, obvious wave that's coming with a touch of humor. If my post was actually flagged dead/shadowbanned or whatever, that speaks poorly to the current culture 'round these parts.
Re: Solomon Golomb (1932–2016)
#18I am lucky to have attended the small symposium at Villanova University only a few weeks ago where Golomb was presented the Franklin Institute Award in electrical engineering. One of those in attendance was Dr. Andrew Viterbi, known for another significant contribution to telecommunications.
A short video of Golomb's accomplishments is available here at the Franklin Institute website: https://www.fi.edu/laureates/solomon-w-golomb
Re: Solomon Golomb (1932–2016)
#19I first encountered his name when learning data encoding which used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golomb_coding . One thing that struck me there was the use of unary coding, which I thought was pretty cool. In my case I was writing a JPEG-LS decoder. Looking at the wiki, I see it is also used in some audio codecs as well.
I learned of him through a similar path, although it was a slightly different encoding, the one used by H.264:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential-Golomb_coding
Re: Solomon Golomb (1932–2016)
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
At this point when people reflexively sh*t on Stephen Wolfram in HN threads, I reflexively assume they're just piling on, don't actually know who he is, and have never used any of his company's software (except maybe for some class in college where they struggled with it for homework in which they were required to use it). I'm not above such things myself, sometimes I can't help myself when people are just a little t…
I've read at least three previous articles from Wolfram where someone dies and yet he makes it all about him. I know 'dang' has come in and said "yeah yeah, he's a nut, we know... move on" on these threads before. But this article was so different -- and so interesting to boot -- that I felt the need to say something. You cannot address Wolfram on HN without addressing the fact that people think he's a nut. I chose m…
In Hardy's words, "Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds. [...] It is a melancholy experience for a professional mathematician to find himself writing about mathematics.
Wolfram can continue writing these articles but as long as they aren't accompanied by actual research, he is just another critic that somehow finds ways to point back to himself - which makes it even worse. At least even the self-actualized critics realize that unless they are seriously involved, they should have a bit of humble pie to avoid making their audience even more turned off.
I love Mathematica, I like the idea of cellular automata. But man, there are no excuses for what Wolfram does in every blog post. Shameless.